


Being a Superhero

by ladybugwarrior



Series: dick grayson angst party [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Character Injury, Slow Burn, Wally West is oblivious, well at least as much slow burn as you can have in a 3k fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 23:05:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14122800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladybugwarrior/pseuds/ladybugwarrior
Summary: Wally West watched as Dick Grayson was shot in the chest on national television. Now, he has to sit in a waiting room and hope that Dick pulls through.





	Being a Superhero

**Author's Note:**

> I have this thing where I get a story idea and then compulsivly write it until it's finished no matter how long that takes. This is a by-product of that. So enjoy!
> 
> Ok, I was just listening to this song again and I thought that it went well with the fic so I thought I would link it.
> 
> All My Heroes- Bleachers  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A03w5jiSS7I

Being a superhero fucking sucks sometimes. No one ever told Wally when he was a kid that getting powers and being able to run around the world in less than a second would land him in a hospital waiting room. No one said that all those powers didn’t count for anything when the person he cares for more than anyone was shot on national television. That was the worst part of being a superhero, being human. These two lives are sides of the same coin that were never meant to be put together. Wally knows that now more than ever. Because Nightwing can go to the Watchtower and get the most advanced healing technology available, but not Dick Grayson. No, Dick Grayson goes to Gotham General. A hospital both understaffed and overcapacity. If Nightwing had been shot the Flash would be getting instant updates, but Wally West gets to sit in the waiting room--- one he doesn’t remember running to--- without knowing if his best friend was dead or alive.

Wally can only guess what he looks like. Pale skin, bloodshot eyes, still hands--- though anyone with knowledge of his powers would know that his hands were just shaking so fast that they appeared still. He has no idea how long Dick has been in surgery, and every time he looks at his watch Wally remembers that it fazed through his hand and broke on the ground. There was a clock somewhere--- it’s a hospital, there must be one nearby--- but Wally can’t even look around to find one. Not when the television in front of him is playing the news and he is stuck watching the same footage of Dick being shot over and over again.

The reporters have about as much information as Wally. Half-an-hour ago, Richard John Grayson, son of billionaire Bruce Wayne, was shot on a televised fundraiser for the orphanages of Gotham. The shooter’s in custody and being interrogated by Commissioner Gordon. Bruce Wayne is across the Pacific for a business deal, but Wally knew that Batman’s actually off-world for a mission. Someone will need to call him.

Unable to do anything to help, Wally keeps watching the same news report and hoping for it to relay some good news. They have nothing new to report, no facts, just speculation as to why someone would want to shoot one of Gotham’s darling sons. A photo of Dick from a few years ago filled the screen, back from when his adoption was made official. He had made fun of Dick for the ridiculous pose that was supposed to look natural, and he had to avoid a punch when he asked about Dick’s modeling career. Now his heart looks at the photo and aches to see that smile one more time. Wally needs a better last image of Dick Grayson than the one he got.

He can’t have the last image in his mind of Dick be him, limp on a gurney, eyes closed, tears track on his cheeks. Wally knows that Dick had to play up how much the gunshot hurt, but getting shot was never painless. With no Batman to impress, and no one nearby to comfort him, there was no way all of those tears were just for show.

Fuck. He needs to move, do something useful. All he wants to do is to put on his Flash suit and go beat the hell out of the shooter, but there was no reason for the Flash to care about Dick Grayson. The next best thing would be to run around the entire world until he couldn’t anymore. But to be doing that would mean leaving Dick alone, and even if no one here would give him any information about him, or let him talk to Dick’s doctor, Wally wasn’t about to abandon his best friend. 

Friend. Wally stopped feeling like Dick’s friend a long time ago, but not in a necessarily bad way. It was odd, but ever since he came back Wally hasn’t been able to think of Dick as a friend like he once did. The word just feels claustrophobic. They had known each other since they were children. Wally has laughed and cried with Dick; he’s yelled in his face until he runs out of air. Dick sees every possibility for Wally’s future, and Wally can do the same for Dick. He can see Nightwing running the JLA, and Dick falling in love.

Dick Grayson can make him angrier than anybody in the world. He’s too reckless, too self-sacrificing, and too oblivious for someone so smart. He praises everyone but can never let himself off the hook. He’s easy to anger and his eyes are too blue. He knows everything about Wally, the way he moves, which comedians he finds funny, and the story behind each of his scars. He’s too much, but somehow, right now, he’s not enough. No, they’re not enough.

Wally puts his head between his knees because he can’t take this anymore. The news anchors keep putting up those posed photos and gushing about the sweet child that had survived trauma, but they didn’t know Dick. They have never seen the night terrors that have made sleep allusive since before Wally had met him. While they are correct to report that he was a police officer, they don’t know that after he takes off one uniform and he trades it for another every night. Dick’s too good for this Gotham and its sister city. He’s too good for Wally, though he would never agree with that.

Out of the haze, Wally feels his phone vibrate in his back pocket and notices that it has been for a while. He slows the tremors in his hands and pulls his cracked phone out of his back pocket and saw a rush of text messages and missed call notifications.

Roy Harper 15:37: HOLY SHIT are you watching the news?

Kaldur 15:37: Wally, please call if you need someone to talk too.

Roy Harper 15:39: Are you there?!?!

Artemis Crook 15:45: are you okay?

Aunt Iris 15:47: I just heard about Dick. Do you need to talk?

Kaldur 15:50: Batman has been notified he is on his way back.

Uncle Barry 15:51: Call me back.

Roy Harper 15:53: Answer me West! He’s my friend too.

Jason Todd 15:57: I know you’re there. Wait for Alfred, he’s almost there. Tim and I will handle everything else.

It’s only been twenty minutes since Dick was shot. Wally feels like he’s been sitting here hours, but it’s only been twenty minutes.

That’s when everything gets loud. There are people screaming out hundreds of questions, and he can catch Dick’s name on dozens of reporter’s lips. He looks up and spots Alfred pushing his way past the press that swarm him and the door, and he’s on his feet again walking towards Alfred. Maybe he yells at them, but soon he has Security Officers with him to help Alfred inside and get the reporters away from the hospital doors.

“Thank you, Mr. West.” Alfred speaks with a slight tremor he has never heard from him before. “I can usually deal with those vultures, but I fear that I may be compromised.”

I want to tell him that he’s not alone. They have both seen Nightwing get downed a hundred times, but never something so public. Never when Nightwing was vulnerable as Dick Grayson has to seem. He wants to tell him, but he doesn’t get the time before a nurse arrives and escorts Alfred to a private waiting room. Wally tags along on Alfred’s assistance--- even though the hospital staff seems reluctant.

The nurse tells them that the bullet hit Dick’s heart and punctured a lung, but his heart was still beating when he arrived. He said that Dick had also lost a lot of blood, too much. Dick was in surgery, but it was too early to know anything else. They should sit tight and wait for the doctor. Wally didn’t notice when they left. All he could think about was how Dick had been shot in the heart, that beautiful heart.

Lost in his mind, he did not notice Alfred had made a phone call until a phone was put in his hand. He looks up at Alfred and sees the worry lines on his face deep, and he sees eyes full of concern. Alfred says something to him, but the words don’t click. Wally just puts the phone next to his ear because that is what you’re supposed to do.

“Wally,” It’s Barry, but that doesn’t make sense. He’s off-world with the Justice League, with Batman. Oh. “Kaldur told the League everything. Are you okay? You weren’t answering any of my calls.”

Wally takes a moment to remind himself how to speak. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it. Alfred told us everything he knows about Dick’s condition, and he’s going to be just fine. People have come back from worse. Hell, Dick’s come back from worse when he was thirteen.”

Again, Wally knows this. He knows what Nightwing has been through, what Robin has been through, but this is just different. It’s undiscovered land that he’s traveling without a map or a compass.

“I can’t lose him, Uncle Barry.” Wally’s sounds weak, and he is. But Alfred puts a hand on his shoulder and he feels strong enough to continue. “I just got back. He can’t leave.”

“He won’t leave you. I promise.” He pauses for a moment. “Listen, we’re about to wrap up here and then everyone is headed straight back. The second we get back we’ll have Doctor Midnight take a look at him and make sure everything is okay. Can you stay with Alfred until then, make sure no reporters give him a hard time?”

Wally nods before remembering that Barry can’t see that. “Yeah, I’ll stay with him.”

“Okay, that’s perfect Wally,” Barry stops talking again. “I have to go, but we’ll be back before morning. Don’t lose hope, and don’t ignore your phone.”

A new voice, a deep one, comes over the receiver. “Keep him safe until I get there.”

“You know I will Bruce.”

The line goes dead and Wally hands the phone back to Alfred. Wally hears the ways Alfred’s bones creak when he sits and thinks back to a time when they were all so much younger. Back when Dick would jumble the English language for a laugh, and before their relationship had been so god damn confusing.

He wishes he could go back to that time when they sat on the rooftop of the Manor. What were they? Wally must have been seventeen, Dick nearing fifteen. Dick had been fighting with Bruce with an increasing frequency and needed a break, so they watched the stars and didn’t say a word. After about an hour, Dick had grabbed his hand. Wally looked over at him and saw something different in his eyes, a whirl-wind of emotions that swept him away. He had been so lost that he hadn’t noticed that Dick had gotten so close to him and blurt out that he was moving away for college the next year. Dick had been enraged, the gentle storm turned into a hurricane and they screamed and argued. That had been their last fight before Wally moved away with Artemis for college. 

He almost forgot about that look in Dick’s eye, all the memories before the fight were blurry. Now that he was thinking of it, Wally can’t help but think of all the other times he’s seen the same look directed his way. When he rambled so fast that Dick lost track of what he was saying, or when they were hanging out playing video games. There was no real rhyme or reason to it.

Alfred’s voice jerks him from those thoughts. “Thank you for being here, Mr. West.”

“Don’t worry about it, if it were anyone else Dick would be here with you.”

“I don’t doubt that. My grandson has a large heart, though I’m sure you are more aware of that than any of us.”

“We’ve known each other a long time.”

Alfred nods, but there’s a glint in his eye like he knows a secret that’s only his. “I’m old, Mr. West, older than I ever thought I would be. Because of that I have seen a lot of friendships come and go, and you two are not friends. Not with how you look at each other when the other is looking the other way.”

Wally’s brain freezes in place. His hands stop shaking, and for the first time in his life he is still. “What are talking about?

Alfred grabs his hand; he looks at Wally with kind eyes. “I think you know.”

How can he? Alfred is making no sense. He says there is a meaning to the way Dick looks at him, and how Wally should know something about that. There wasn’t anything there. Sometimes Dick just looks at him, and Wally doesn’t see anything in that. He doesn’t think anything of it, just feels the fluttering in his stomach and uncomfortable heat in his face. 

“I don’t understand.” Wally says, and his throat was tight for some reason.

Alfred pats his knee like he was a child. “You will someday, but don’t wait too long to figure it out.”

Wally doesn’t say anything, and they lapse to silence until the Doctor arrives. His report is factual and cuts straight to what they wanted to hear. Dick is alive, and he will be for a long time. The bullet had injured his heart, but they were able to fix the damage before it was too late. They put him on heavy sedation until his lung heals more and breathing became easier for him. Wally and Alfred are allowed in one at a time for five minutes each, and after that they could return the next morning for visitation hours.

Alfred went in first to check on his grandson, and when he came out there was a mixture of grief and relief that sat heavy on his features. He pulls out his phone and begins making calls, but Wally doesn’t stick around to hear them.

Dick’s room was pale and monochromatic from the little amount of sunlight remaining. The clock on the wall said it was almost eight o’clock now, Dick had been in surgery five hours as they tried to get the shrapnel out. The strain that his body has been under shows. There bags of blood and saline that connect to his arm and an oxygen mask on his face, and his skin and hair are lifeless. He looks dead, but Wally holds on to knowing that he isn’t and won’t be while Wally is still alive.

The bandages on Dick’s chest were perfectly wrapped, so Alfred must have checked to see that Dick’s wound was stitched to his standard. Other than the bandages, the sheets were also void of wrinkles. Alfred must have spent his five minutes micromanaging every aspect of Dick’s room; Dick had always told him that Alfred tended to tidy when he was worried. The only inconsistency was the chair pulled up to Dick’s side, and that chair was the one that Wally finds himself sitting in.

He can’t stop himself from grabbing Dick’s wrist and feeling his pulse and finding Dick’s steady pulse brings his own down. Wally doesn’t know why, but his free hand begins to push Dick’s hair away from his face. His hand lingers where it cradles Dick’s face; his thumb strokes the side of his face where he had seen tears hours ago. Any thought of the shooter, or the fear of losing Dick, was gone now. Dick was tangible and right there, and he would give cent he had for Dick to open his eyes and look at him like that one more time. All he wanted for Dick to laugh with him, at him. He wanted Dick to lose his temper, and he wanted Dick to watch the stars with him and lean a little too close. Wally wants him. He loves… 

“I love Dick Grayson.” He whispers and can’t help feeling a little betrayed because he would have liked being part of that decision. But he doubts that people get the choice to love a man like Dick Grayson, and he thinks that maybe he is lucky enough that Dick may love him back.

“You can’t die, Dick.” He tells Dick, because he can’t die. Not now. “There’s so much about this life that I hate. I hate how all of my friends young, how I can’t see the faces of everyone I failed to save because there are just too many to remember, and how I have to lie to every person I’ve ever met. Being a superhero fucking sucks, but you make it bearable. You can’t die because I can’t do this without you, Dick. I am head-over-heels, over the moon, and every other possible cliché in love with you.”

“You mean that?”

Wally jumps when Dick’s raspy voice rises above the hiss of oxygen. His eyes open and that look, the look of total devotion, falls over him. The nurses must have not given him enough sedative--- they didn’t expect a billionaire’s son to have a tolerance.

“Hey,” Wally’s voice doesn’t break into a sob, but it’s a near thing. He must be smiling like an idiot, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Are you in any pain?”

“Did you mean that?” Dick insists. He looks so tired, but he also seems determined to stay awake. Wally loves his stubbornness. 

“Yeah, I do.” Wally says, and Dick smiles with the same lovesickness that Wally new he had. 

Dick tries to lift a hand to touch Wally’s face, but he isn’t strong enough. Wally catches the hand and lays it back down so Dick won’t pull out the IV’s in his arm. 

“Don’t,” Wally murmurs. “You need to heal. Besides, we have all the time in the world.”

“Kiss me,” Dick speaks soft, and Wally wants to do what he asks for. But he can’t stop looking at oxygen mask. “I’ll be fine. Please, Wally.”

“You’re too reckless.”

“You love it.” Dick says with a grin, and now Wally can’t help himself.

He’s gentle, gentler than he has even been in his life when he lifts the oxygen mask and kisses Dick Grayson. It’s everything that he’s ever needs, but never knew he wanted. It’s slow and patient, too perfect. When Wally pulls away it’s too soon, but he can see that Dick is tiring and replaces the oxygen mask.

“Go to sleep, Dick. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Dick fall asleep as Wally strokes his thumb on the side of his face. Here, watching the man he loves sleeping safe under his watch, Wally feels a little lighter. Because finally he sees the bright side of being a superhero, falling in love with Dick Grayson.

**Author's Note:**

> Send me a message dontfeedthebabytigers.tumblr.com


End file.
